RD331 - Virginia Outdoors Foundation Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2011


Executive Summary:
*This report was replaced in its entirety on November 22, 2011 by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation.

The period between 2000 and 2010 was a golden decade of conservation in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Driven by the most generous tax incentives in the nation—the Land Preservation Tax Credits—Virginians preserved nearly 900,000 acres of open space. More than half of those acres were the result of landowners granting conservation easements to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation. During this time, VOF preserved open space at a rate of about 5 acres every hour. Today, we protect more acres of land in Virginia than any other state, local, or private entity, and we hold more easements than any land trust in the nation.

It was not by sheer chance that Virginia adopted the best land conservation legislation in the nation in 1966. George Clemon Freeman, Jr., serving as Special Counsel to the Virginia Outdoor Recreation Study Commission (1964–65), worked with Senator Fitzgerald (Gerry) Bemiss and other enlightened legislators and conservationists to craft the Virginia Open-Space Land Act. This landmark legislation was bolstered in 1970 when George Freeman convinced Lewis Powell, his senior law partner who served on the Virginia Commission on Constitutional Revision, to craft complementary conservation language for the 1970 Virginia Constitution in Article XI, Sections 1 & 2. These provisions of the Virginia Constitution affirm and prescribe that “. . . it shall be the Commonwealth’s policy to protect its atmosphere, lands, and waters from pollution, impairment, or destruction, for the benefit, enjoyment, and general welfare of the people of the Commonwealth.”

Some of the farsighted public officials and concerned citizen conservationists who set this course for Virginia are no longer here to continue to guide us. Thankfully, we have pertinent documents and organizational structures in place to help us continue to chart a responsible land-use course for Virginia.

The challenge now is two-fold: To maintain the momentum we achieved during the first decade of the new century, and to live up to the responsibility we have accepted as the steward of so much open space. While our portfolio has quadrupled in the last decade, our revenue in recent years has declined. It is clear that state funding for land conservation is likely to be extremely limited for the foreseeable future. Therefore, it seems appropriate for VOF to reenergize its efforts to collaborate with the private sector to fulfill our mission.

One way we are engaging the private sector is by reaching out to philanthropists who are interested in protecting land. VOF has a rich history with private philanthropy, such as our work to protect the Bull Run Mountains in Northern Virginia. We hope to rekindle relationships with past donors, as well as establish relations with new donors, and prove to them that VOF is the most efficient, most effective vehicle for achieving their dreams.

We are also engaging the private sector through a new volunteer stewardship program. With more than 3,000 easements to monitor and limited staff resources, we believe that volunteers can help us meet our stewardship obligations in the future. Volunteerism also promotes positive public relations by engaging the public more directly in our work.

As you read this Annual Report, we hope you will be inspired by the many farms and forests we protected in FY 2011 and will join us as we embark upon another decade of conservation. The challenges are great, but the opportunities are greater. No organization in Virginia is better poised to seize those opportunities than the Virginia Outdoors Foundation.